Till the foul crimes done... are burnt and purged away.

In his three years of being a medium for ghosts, Connor had learnt that there were three main rules to being a ghost:

Rule One, that ghosts were tied to places or objects that killed them. Their houses, gravesites, the places and items that they were hurt badly enough to get stuck. They couldn't just move whenever they felt like it.

Rule Two, ghosts usually didn't have the power to manifest, or move objects.

Rule Three, ghosts got the power to manifest or move objects, if the places and objects they haunted were disturbed or given power.

Conner had met over fifty ghosts in his busy time as a ghost. He'd run into a cult of teenage girls that revived a cannibalistic witch. He'd survived the remnant of an alcoholic maniac punishing unruly students in a school. He'd gotten little dead babies to stop crying a maternity ward nurse to insanity.

But he'd never met a ghost that broke the three rules. Until he realised that the first ghost he'd ever met broke all those rules.

"How did you die?" Connor asked again, probably for the hundredth time.

Rayna rolled her eyes, swinging her legs off Connor's shelf. "As you know, I have no idea."

"How can you have no idea?" Connor steepled his fingers under his nose, staring at her. As always, the very edge of her form shook.

"Oh, let's see," Rayna focused her dark eyes on him. "Because I don't remember." The topic of her death always irritated her.

Connor wrote it down on a pad of paper. Cause of death: unknown.

Rayna lightly leapt off the shelf and pulled the pad towards her. "What is this?" She demanded, reading the other notes he'd jotted down.

Connor sighed, pulling the pad back. "When we first met, I promised I'd solve your mystery. Set you free."

Rayna rubbed at her chest. "It took you three years to remember that promise?"

"I'm 18," Connor shrugged. "It's time, don't you think?"

Rayna's form glitched again. Sometimes she was so real, Connor almost forgot that she didn't really exist here. That she never would again.

Rayna said nothing. She stared out the window, her skin grey and blue.

The door swung open right then, cutting Connor's next words off.

"Hey kiddo," His dad rasped. "Your mom and I are goin' shopping. You wanna come?"

Connor never knew what to say to him. "Uh, no thanks."

"You sure?" His dad wiggled his eyebrows. "There might be some snacks in it for you."

Connor said nothing, and finally his dad left. It took Connor's heart failing for his dad to reappear in his life. His mother might have forgiven him, but Connor felt he never would.

Rayna was staring at him, dark hair hanging in her dark, sunken eyes. "You really want to do this?"

Connor knew his life was insane. That he spent more time with the dead than the living, his best friend was a dead girl, and he'd died at least twice.

But he owed Rayna that. It was his first promise to her, and she deserved the truth.

"I want you to finally be at peace." Connor said firmly, standing up with his notes.

Rayna grabbed the keys and handed them to Connor. A brief action, but it chilled the keys.

"Where are we even going?" Rayna asked over the sound of the stuttering engine. She added to the ruckus and chaos by turning on the radio.

"The last place you were seen alive." Connor replied, straining to hear his phone announce directions.

Rayna laughed. "I hated that place. Are we sure I didn't just kill myself or something?"

Connor's fingers tightened on the wheel, and he chanced a glance at the dead girl who taught him how to live.

Her normally gleeful, curious expression was dulled.

They stopped in front of the dilapidated house at the end of Carlton Street. Items littered the lawn, but it was the house itself that was a rotting husk of despair.

Rayna took the stairs two at a time. She pulled at a loose brick until she found a spare key and unlocked the door.

Connor followed her in slowly as the door creaked open. "According to the police report, you left the house at 4:30 p.m. July 3rd."

Rayna swung around the post of the stairs.

"Your mom had no idea who you'd left with, and no strange cars were reported in the area." Connor waved the file he'd stolen off his dad's computer. "So it must have been someone you knew. Did you have any friends with cars?"

"Not friends that knew how to hide a body so well that it was never found." Rayna snorted, and Connor grimaced.

"What about your dad?" Connor asked. "All I have here is your mom's old statement."

"Never knew the guy. And before you ask, no, I had no family, no friends that I would have left with. My mom was super paranoid, she basically had me locked up in the house." Rayna sighed, slumping onto the steps.

Connor breathed heavily, reaching into his pocket to take one of his many pills. "You cared so much about the other ghosts, but you don't give a shit about your own afterlife?"

Rayna frowned at him. "Dumbass, you're supposed to take that with food."

Connor waved her off. "Think, who would you have left with? Maybe you just went out." He shook his head, sitting down next to her. "Maybe some random serial killer murdered you."

"Maybe." Rayna sighed, resting her chin on a knee.

"But it doesn't explain why you can move around. You can go anywhere, you change clothes, you can move things. You're not angry, or tied to any object." Connor rubbed at his temples. "Why are you different?"

Rayna smiled, knocking her shoulder into his. "Aw, you think I'm special?" When she saw his glare she rolled her eyes. "God, Connor, maybe I exploded and particles of me got sprinkled everywhere. Maybe I evaporated and became part of the water cycle."

Connor stared at her, and Rayna groaned.

"Connor, no, I didn't explode!"

"I never even thought about it. But we've technically never left the county limits." Connor grinned, feeling the familiar thrill of a mystery.

"So?" Rayna made a face. "No way my ghostly jurisdiction is the entire county. What, did the county kill me? Did I die on a border?"

"Let's find out."

So they got back in the car, and Connor almost told Rayna to put a seatbelt on. Then he started the car and started driving.

"Take a left. Now keep going straight for five hundred metres. Left. Now switch lanes." Rayna instructed, staring at his phone. "Okay, in a little bit, as in ten-ish minutes, we should drive into the next county."

Connor exhaled nervously, drumming his fingers on the steering. "This could be a real clue."

"Hmm." Rayna yawned. "So if it is the county, what does that mean?"

"Remember the psycho guidance counsellor?" Connor asked, and Rayna smiled.

"Yeah, the school slowly made him die of alcohol poisoning." Rayna, unlike him, had always enjoyed the terrifying parts of their adventures.

"Maybe you died because nobody took you out of your mom's care, or because of a city employee." Connor suggested, looking over at Rayna. "Meaning, technically, the county or state killed you."

Rayna was typing something into the phone. "Apparently, social services is a responsibility of all levels of government. So, unless you have your passport-"

Connor growled and pulled off the road. "This is so hard without knowing what killed you." He looked at her again. "You age."

"Ugh, did my wrinkles give me away?" Rayna pretended to fret over her ghostly skin.

"We met when I was thirteen, and you've changed. You're older." Connor frowned. "That shouldn't happen. Maybe...you're not a ghost."

Rayna stared at him. "Wow, you've solved it."

"Huh?" Connor frowned at her.

"Oh, you got me. I'm dead, and only you can see me, but nope, not a ghost-"

Connor rolled his eyes. "Jesus, Rayna-"

"What am I then?" She shouted, slamming a hand down onto the dash. Connor watched it dent, in a rare show of the unstable energy ghosts had. "Why am I stuck here?!"

Connor frowned at her, surprised. "Rayna-"

"I'm all alone!" Rayna shouted. "Nobody talks to me! I can go wherever, but it's like it always was!" She breathed out furiously, staring right ahead. "It's not fair. It's not fair that you get to live, and try new food, and go and explore the fucking world. And I get to watch you waste it on dead people!"

"Well if you're so miserable, help me solve it already!" Connor yelled back.

There was a rap on the window and both of them jumped.

A police officer was peering into the car, frowning at Connor.

The window squeaked as it rolled down, and Connor sheepishly stared at the man. "Yes, officer?"

"All okay, son? You're not really supposed to stop here." The man stared into Connor's car, like he was looking for drugs or alcohol.

"Got tired, sir." Connor prayed he hadn't heard too much of him talking to nobody.

"What's that in your pocket?" The cop asked sharply and Rayna laughed.

"Busted," She giggled, and Connor ignored her, fishing out his pills.

The cop frowned at them, his lips forming the name and studying the prescription. "Well, you better get on your way then." The cop cleared his throat. "Safe driving."

"Thank you, sir." Connor breathed out in relief when the police officer left, slowly getting back on the road. "Oh, holy-" He glanced at Rayna.

"What?" She asked, and Connor veered into a parking lot.

"A cop! You would have left the house with a police officer." Connor yelled, punching the steering wheel.

"Yeah, I guess." Rayna nodded, still looking confused. "You think a cop killed me?"

"Think about it, no evidence, no trace, no trial. A cop could have worked around all of that." Connor's mind buzzed with the possibility. "And-and, cops routinely come into hospitals."

Rayna's face opened like a flower when she understood. "Where we first met, at the hospital. You think the cop that murdered me, somehow brought me there."

"Maybe his gun, or something else. And then I saw you because I'd just had my own near-death experience." Connor waved his hands around, narrowly missing the steering wheel again.

"Yeah, it would all make sense, but I'm not following that cop around, am I? I'm following you." Rayna rolled her eyes. "So that theory is-"

"You're not following me," Connor said quietly.

"What?" Rayna asked, her voice small. "Connor-"

"You're following the car." Connor met her eyes and saw the moment the truth got to her.

"The car your father got from the police auction, his old car, because he's a cop." Rayna murmured, half in a daze. "I've been in proximity to the car, the whole time?"

Connor stared at her, shocked. "Rayna, my dad killed you."

"Oh yeah." Rayna's eyebrows went up. "There's that too."

Connor clicked the car into motion and drove it, speeding the entire way home.

Rayna was silent, eyes wide and staring ahead.

His father was unloading groceries from the car, when Connor swerved viciously onto the driveway.

Connor slammed the car door, leaving Rayna inside as he stormed over to his father, gasping for breath.

"Connor, what the hell?" His father shouted, a bit angry.

"I know what you did." Connor seethed at his father, wheezing. "I know what you fucking did, you murderer."

"Connor!" His father glanced towards the house. "It's not what you think, buddy, come on!"

"You killed her! She was-what-why? Why did you do it?!" Connor launched himself at his father, his vision swimming.

"Connor, stop," Rayna ordered calmly, standing on the driveway.

"Buddy, you need to breathe-I need to call this in-"

"No, tell me! Tell me now! He needs to tell me!" Connor's voice cracked as he said it, barely there. Rayna shook her head, eyes full of tears.

"Okay, okay! Stop! Emily, go inside!" His father waved his mother back into the house. "Connor, I'll explain, just calm down first!"

Connor's hands slipped off his dad's collar and he leaned against the car, panting heavily. "Why dad? She's so-"

"Your mother called me." His dad finally said, his voice strained. "You were in the hospital, sick. Your heart...was failing."

Connor frowned, feeling cold sweat all over his face. "What?"

His dad's next words were half-sobbed. "You needed her heart, Connor."

It beat in his ears. The anxious, double beat of Rayna's heart.

She smiled slightly, kneeling down next to him. She placed her icy fingers on his.

"She's your half-sister, and she was a match. I hoped she was, anyways. So I-I-" His dad looked away, then looked right at him. "I did it for you."

Connor traced the long scar in between his ribs. Even through the shirt he knew it was there. Then he found Rayna's heartbeat.

Thu-thump. Thu-thump.

He stared up at her. "I'm so, so sorry."

Rayna choked out a sob. "Oh, come on. What are half-siblings for?"

"I'm so sorry," Connor said again, voice broken. That's why she was always there. Why she moved. Why she aged.

"It's not your fault, Connor." His father was saying.

"You should've had a chance." Connor told her, feeling a stupid tear make its way down his face. "You wanted to live."

Rayna shook her head and then scoffed. "Moron, so what's next? Are you gonna tear it out and put it back? Stop apologizing! I'm so happy you got to be alive." Rayna laughed. "You're the only person who ever saw me, you know? And that's after I died."

Connor watched her miserably. Wondered what she could've been if she got to live.

"I'm glad you got to live. Seriously. I had fun too." Rayna grinned ruefully. "You even kept your promise. You found out why I died."

Not yet. "How did you choose?" He asked his father finally. "How did you pick between us?"

His father's face was pale and drawn. It took a moment for him to speak. "She lived in a shitty house, Connor. Her mother smoked and drank, and did drugs. That kid had no future."

Rayna wiped the tears off her face roughly. "Do you love him?"

"No." Connor shook his head, staring in horror at his dad. Their dad.

"Good." Rayna wrapped her hands around their father's throat and squeezed.

Connor watched the man's eyes bulge, his muscles struggle and spasm.

For a second, his dad's dark, dark eyes seemed to see the person in front of him.

And then he was gone.

Rayna dialled 911 and handed him the phone.

"Please hurry, my father is dead." Connor muttered, then dropped it to the ground. "What are the odds he'll come back?"

"Depends. Do you have one of his kidneys inside you or something?" Rayna grinned when Connor groaned.

"So we're siblings," Connor stated, testing out that news. "I can't believe we didn't figure that out."

"Well, I am much better looking than you. So, that might be why." Rayna shrugged, leaning against the car.

"You kind of have his nose." Connor pointed out, and Rayna leaned forward.

"Huh. You look like him more though." She mused, then turned around to look at him. "Does this mean we're going to stop?"

"Stop?" Connor raised an eyebrow, distinctly hearing sirens approaching.

"Solving mysteries, meeting ghosts?" Rayna prompted, almost looking pouty.

Each one a mystery to solve, a life that ended wrong, unjustly, evilly. Something to put to bed. To fix.

Connor rubbed at the scar on his chest. "Hell no."